SOCIAL FORAGING - INDIVIDUAL LEARNING AND CULTURAL TRANSMISSION OF INNOVATIONS

We present two stochastic models of individual and social learning tha t count the number of individuals exhibiting a learned, resource-produ cing trait in a group of social foragers. The novelty of our modeling results from incorporating the empirically based assumption that rates of both individual and social learning should depend on the frequency of the learned trait within the group. When resources occur as clumps shared by group members, a naive individual's acquisition of the skil l required for clump discovery/production should involve opposing proc esses of frequency dependence. The opportunity to learn via cultural t ransmission should increase with the trait's frequency, but the opport unity for learning individually should decrease as the trait's frequen cy increases. The results of the model suggest that the evolution of t he capacity for cultural transmission may be promoted in environments where scrounging at resource clumps inhibits rates of individual learn ing.